Michigan’s Highest Point Keeps Getting Dethroned by Inches. The Latest Culprit May Be Hikers’ Boots.

The top of Michigan is a quiet, wooded hump in Baraga County that you can drive almost all the way up. There is a small clearing, a bench, a survey marker, and a blue mailbox holding a notebook where you sign your name to prove you were there. Mount Arvon, 1,979 feet. It might be the most modest state highpoint in America — and it sits at the center of the pettiest, most wonderful fight in Michigan geography, a half-century title bout measured entirely in inches.

The crown has never sat still up here. For years, people assumed the state topped out at Government Peak in the Porcupine Mountains, until surveying said otherwise and the honor passed to Mount Curwood, a neighboring Huron Mountains summit named for the Michigan adventure novelist James Oliver Curwood. Then in 1982 a U.S. Geological Survey team ran new measurements and delivered the upset: nearby Mount Arvon, at 1,979.24 feet, was higher than Curwood — by 11 inches. The highpointing world groaned and repacked its trunks. “A lot of the old-timers that did Mount Curwood came back and did Mount Arvon,” the head of the Baraga County Convention and Visitors Bureau told Bridge Michigan — just to keep their Michigan checkmark honest.

The humble champion

Arvon wears the title lightly. The name comes by way of Welsh slate country — local slate finds in the 1870s got the township named for Carnarvon, later clipped to Arvon. The summit sits about a dozen miles from Lake Superior as the raven flies, but reaching it means a 26-odd-mile run out of L’Anse on winding gravel and logging roads, following the blue signs the county keeps up for pilgrims. It ranks 38th among the 50 state highpoints, it falls about 21 feet short of the 2,000-foot bar some definitions set for a proper “mountain,” and its reward is a bench, a cut vista toward Keweenaw Bay, and that mailbox. The U.P. calls it a mountain anyway, and the U.P. is correct.

The rematch, decided by boot soles

Then the fight resumed. In 2015, a USGS aerial LiDAR pass found Arvon and Curwood in a statistical dead heat — identical within the measurement’s own margin of error. That ambiguity was an open invitation, and in 2024 Eric Gilbertson — an engineering professor and surveyor famous in highpointing circles for re-measuring summits with modern differential GNSS gear — hauled his instruments up both hills. After sitting on the results for peer review, he announced the verdict in 2025: Mount Curwood is back on top, by roughly 4.8 inches. The big highpointing databases flipped their listings, and somewhere James Oliver Curwood’s ghost poured himself a celebratory drink.

Buried in the survey was the best detail of all. The 1982 crew had set their benchmark disk flush with the ground on Arvon’s summit. When Gilbertson arrived four decades later, that same disk stood about seven inches proud of the dirt, and old photographs showed the ground level dropping steadily around it over the years. His suggested explanation: decades of visitors walking the summit may have gradually worn it down. Read that again — Michigan’s highpoint may have lost its title one bootstep at a time, eroded out of first place by the very people who came to stand on it.

So where does that leave things? Officially, the State of Michigan and the maps still say Mount Arvon. Functionally, the tape measures now say Mount Curwood. The two hills sit a few miles apart in the same Baraga County woods, separated by less than the length of a Yooper’s winter boot, and neither one of them cares in the slightest.

In most states, the highest point is something you conquer. In Michigan, it’s a coin flip between two shy, tree-covered hills that keep trading the belt politely, inches at a time. The only honest move is to visit both, sign the mailbox register, and tip your cap to a state whose very mountains are too humble to hold a grudge.

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Sources, credits, and reporting details

Sources & accountability

How this story was reported

Editorial methodArchival synthesis

Last verifiedJul. 19, 2026

Corrections statusNo material correction note is recorded on this article.

Verification note: Initial ledger, verified 2026-07-19 during publication prep. The 1982 and 2024-2025 survey findings are checked against the surveyor own published account and contemporaneous coverage; the article distinguishes official state recognition of Arvon from the surveying community adoption of Curwood. Sole direct quotation is a fourteen-word sentence via Bridge Michigan. Featured image public domain, credit Yinan Chen, used without cropping. No AI-generated or AI-assisted media.

Primary sources

1. New State Highpoint of Michigan: Mt Curwood — Eric Gilbertson, countryhighpoints.com

   Featured image record. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Copyright Eric Gilbertson; cited.

   Supports: 2024 differential GNSS ground survey found Mount Curwood 0.4 feet higher than Mount Arvon; 2015 USGS LiDAR showed the peaks within 0.1 feet, inside the roughly 4-inch accuracy; the 1982 benchmark disk set flush with the ground now stands about seven inches above it, with photographic evidence of gradual summit erosion; no ground surveys of the peaks between 1982 and 2024.

   Primary account by the surveyor.

Additional reporting

1. Michigan Dreaming Bucket List: Your guide to hiking the state tallest peak — Bridge Michigan (Laura Herberg)

   Featured image record. Published Jul. 25, 2025. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Copyright Bridge Michigan; brief quotation with attribution.

   Supports: 1982 USGS measurements put Mount Arvon at 1,979.24 feet, 11 inches higher than Mount Curwood; Arvon remains the state officially recognized high point; highpointers who had climbed Curwood returned to do Arvon, per the Baraga County CVB; high-clearance road access details.

   Sole direct quotation in the article is the fourteen-word CVB sentence.

2. Mount Arvon — Wikipedia

   Featured image record. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. CC BY-SA text; cited.

   Supports: 1,979 feet; ranks 38th among state high points; about 12 miles east of L Anse but roughly a 26-mile drive on winding logging roads; timber-company land with public access; now described as either the highest or second-highest natural point.

3. Mount Curwood — Wikipedia

   Featured image record. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. CC BY-SA text; cited.

   Supports: 1,978 feet; named for author James Oliver Curwood; held the state high point designation until the 1982 resurvey; 2025 resurveys found it 0.4 feet higher than Mount Arvon.

4. Mt. Arvon / Mt. Curwood: Michigan high point — Outdoor Pilgrim

   Featured image record. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Copyright Outdoor Pilgrim; cited.

   Supports: Arvon name traces to 1870s slate discoveries and the Welsh district Carnarvon, shortened to Arvon; summary of the Gilbertson survey including the benchmark standing seven inches proud and the hypothesis that decades of visitors wore the summit down.

5. 48 Hours to the Top of Michigan — Marks Mountain Travels

   Featured image record. Published Dec. 24, 2025. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Copyright marksmountaintravels; cited.

   Supports: Gilbertson announced results after more than a year of peer review; major highpointing databases including Peakbagger and Lists of John updated to Curwood; the Arvon-Curwood gap described as the smallest between a state top two.

6. Michigan Highest Point: Mt. Arvon — Travel the Mitten

   Featured image record. Published Dec. 29, 2014. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Copyright Travel the Mitten; cited.

   Supports: Summit features include the blue sign, USGS survey marker, blue registration mailbox and bench; a vista cut through the trees toward Keweenaw Bay; paper-company land with allowed public access; route out of L Anse via Skanee, Roland Lake and Ravine River roads.

7. Exploring Michigan Highest Places — Woods-N-Water News

   Featured image record. Published Dec. 1, 2016. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Copyright Woods-N-Water News; cited.

   Supports: Government Peak in the Porcupine Mountains was once considered the state high point before Curwood; Arvon falls about 21 feet short of a 2,000-foot mountain definition; Curwood sits about six miles southwest of Arvon; 27-mile trip from L Anse using the county pamphlet.

Photo and media credits

1. Mount Arvon summit registration mailbox (Good Free Photos series) — Yinan Chen / Wikimedia Commons

   Featured image record. Accessed Jul. 19, 2026. Public domain; credit Yinan Chen.

   Supports: Featured image: the visitor registration mailbox in the summit clearing of Mount Arvon. Local copy used without cropping.

   Public domain photograph from the Good Free Photos Michigan series on Wikimedia Commons.

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